MAGA Republicans are already pushing conspiracy theories about the shooting at Brown University over the weekend, claiming that one of the victims was targeted for her conservative beliefs.

Sophomore student Ella Cook was one of the two people killed Saturday when a shooter opened fire during a review session for an economics exam. The gunman has not yet been taken into custody or identified, but the victims have—and apparently that’s all MAGA thought they needed to crack the case.

Some Republicans began to claim that Cook, who served as vice president of the Brown chapter of College Republicans of America, was targeted for her politics. Of course, none of them bothered to mention Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, an Uzbek student who was studying neuroscience who was also killed Saturday, or the eight others who were injured.

William Branson Donahue, founder and chairman of the College Republicans, claimed to have been “told” that Cook was “allegedly targeted for her conservative beliefs, hunted, and killed in cold blood.”

“Losing Charlie three months ago rocked our worlds. The entire College Republicans community is weeping this evening learning of the news. This was an attack on our family,” he wrote on X Sunday night.

It seems that Donahue quickly realized the story didn’t quite add up, but rather than remove the original post, he just wrote a second post beneath it.

“This was the report I received that came from students immediately after the news broke. The story is evolving. We are waiting for the official police report and receiving updates from the chapter,” Donahue said.

His follow-up post did not receive nearly as much attention as his initial one. At time of publishing, his conspiracy post had received 833 comments, 3,500 reposts, and 13,000 likes. His tepid attempt to walk it back had just 116 comments, 48 reposts, and 644 likes.

It seems clear Donahue did not wait for the official police report before lighting a flare to his fellow conservatives.

Gabe Guidarini, chairman of the Ohio College Republicans Federation who previously thought a very real video of Vivek Ramaswamy was a deepfake, carried the torch. “They have martyred one of our own,” he wrote on X Sunday night. “Pray for every College Republican leader and member.”

Who are “they?” Why, the left of course.

Chaya Raichik of LibsofTikTok posted on X Sunday that Cook’s death meant it was “open season on Conservatives now.”

And New York City Councilwoman Vicky Paladino wrote Sunday on X that it was “very clear now that the attack at Brown was perpetrated by the leftist activist and targeted Republicans.”

For now, it seems that the only substantive similarity between this shooting and the assassination of Charlie Kirk, besides that they both took place at universities, is just how quickly MAGA has moved to exploit violence for its own political purposes.

The far right is claiming that Ahmed Al Ahmed, the bystander who intervened in the deadly, antisemitic mass shooting at a Hanukkah celebration in Bondi Beach, Australia, this weekend was a Christian—and not a Muslim—to justify its Islamophobia.

Australian Mass Shooting

At least 12 are dead & 29 injured after Naveed Akram — a radical Islamic terrorist — opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration.

Don’t let the media whitewash this:

This is terrorism.

This is radical Islam.

Stop allowing migrants from countries that hate… pic.twitter.com/te7TxeruHE

“The media keeps saying the man who disarmed the Muslim terrorist in Australia today is also a Muslim who owns a fruit stand,” far-right commentator Laura Loomer wrote Sunday on X. “Credible reports suggest the man is actually a Lebanese or Coptic Christian. Don’t fall for the propaganda.”

“He is a Christian Maronite! The hero that stopped one of the terrorists in Australia is called Ahmad Al Ahmad. The Anti-Israel mobs celebrated him being a Muslim, as if that made the terror attack less terrible,” a large account called “Hamas Atrocities” wrote. “But he is not a Muslim! He is a Christian Maronite!”

“The hero who disarmed the T*rrorist in Australia is a Christian. NOT a muslim,” said another account.

This was debunked quickly. In reality, Al Ahmed—who tackled and disarmed one of the gunmen in a shocking act of heroism—is a Muslim immigrant from Syria who owns a fruit shop, as confirmed by The Jerusalem Post and Al Ahmed’s family.

“He’s been here since 2006, and he’s an Australian citizen.… My son is a hero. He served with the police and the central security forces,” Al Ahmed’s father told an Australian news broadcast. “His conscience and his soul compelled him to pounce on one of the terrorists and rid him of his weapon.”

The 43-year-old father of two was shot twice after disarming one of the shooters and is currently in the hospital recovering.

Here are Ahmad Al Ahmad, the “Christian Maronite” dad, and Mam talking about their son saving lives at Bondi Beach.

U lying snake.. https://t.co/UrfkOuzuRb

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